I signed up to the Forum just so I could post to this thread. You guys have done some great mods on your Raiders.
I have a Bass Hound 10.2 which is similar in that it is a two man boat.
I have seen several posts about putting bedliner on these boats or trying to paint them and I wanted to pass along some information.
Most of these plastic boats are made from HDPE (High Density Polyethelyne). You will need to contact your manufacture to find out for sure, but It is probably HDPE. There is very little that will stick to HDPE (paint or adhesives). Some epoxy paints will, but they are expensive! You can paint your boat if you want to spend the money. There are also some heat treatments that will make HDPE more "sticky" so that the spray paints for plastics will really stick to it. Use your Google-Fu and I am sure you can find plenty of info for painting HDPE.
When I got my boat, it had a big rip in the front / middle of the hull. The Bass Hound has a more traditional hull style vs the pontoon style of the Raider. The rip was about 9" long and it was about 1/2" wide (at its widest point). I have no idea how this damage was done, but needless to say, I got a great deal on my little boat. So I started reading up on how to fix it. I spent about 2 weeks reading and learning as much as I could about Welding Plastic. If you have never heard of plastic welding, I suggest you learn a little about it. I have fixed several things since my boat repair. Most DIY projects are not too difficult.
Here is a link to some good info: http://www.wegenerwelding.com/pdf/09_Guidelines.pdf
I got my plastic welding kit from Harbor Freight Tools. They have several to choose from, but I bought the cheapest one and it worked fine. It looks like a large soldering iron with a flat head. I have also used a regular old soldering iron for repairing small items. Like fixing a cracked lense on my boat trailer lights. So anyway...back to the boat.
It turns out that milk jugs are made from HDPE. I cut up several and used them as my welding rods. It took about 7 hours for me to make the permenant repair. I methodically melted the new plastic to the old and closed the rip in the hull. Then using the welding iron, I melted a piece of metal screen into the plastic repair. Finally I melted a new layer of plastic over the entire repair. It worked great! I was able to salvage the $1200 boat that I was able to get for $200! The hull is green and has a nice big white spot where I was able to fix it. No one can see it except the fish, and they don't mind!
So if you damage your Raider, you can fix it yourself! I will see if I can find any pictures to post. I am not sure if I still have them.
